Hype v. reality: The best iOS tools for professional content creation

For creative pros, iPads and iPhones are increasingly becoming taking over …

Many mobile and tablet apps inherently make a promise: this program can fill a void laptops can't. Developers have made professionally-oriented products for the iPad for almost two years, but how far have we come? Is there really a place for the iPad in a content creative pro's toolbox? And what limitations can we expect from trying to make a tablet do a laptop's job?

I set out to find a balance of utilitarian and innovative apps that fit into professional workflows within photography, video, and 3D. Hopefully this provides a glimpse of how developers are using iOS with creative professionals in mind, and can help assess these attempts are successful or not. Note that because of this broad scope, I didn't fully review every product and did not work with any anti-Android intent. iOS still dominates this particular professional software field and made the most sense to cover, though some of these apps are dual-platform.

Photography

Everyone's heard of Instagram by now. This photo-taking and sharing app is immensely popular, and it's interesting how this one app singlehandedly made film-simulating color LUTs (look-up tables) a mainstream feature. There are now countless photo- and video-grading iOS apps putting some great tools in non-techie hands. HDR apps and panorama tools have become similarly ubiquitous. But some apps stand out in the iOS photography category as viable professional tools.

PhotoCalc

In the less ambitious end of the photographer's tools is PhotoCalc. There are many convenient little light meter apps using your phone or iPad camera to calculate proper exposure. This app's developer (Adair Systems) was smart to not attempting to replace a tool professionals already have better versions of.

The sunrise tool uses location-awareness to show daylight information relevant to photographers looking to use natural light:

The Flash Exposure panel shows optimal subject distance for your ISO/Aperture/Flash Power, taking out the guesswork. It's even got a glossary of terms for those self-taught prosumers who may not know some of the more esoteric jargon. PhotoCalc is one of those apps that's not flashy with its features. It's just a well thought out pocket workhorse for photographers who need reliable, accurate values while working in the field. It can be an invaluable tool for many photographers.

Sun Seeker: 3D Augmented Reality Viewer

This augmented reality app taps into the camera, GPS, accelerometer, and compass in iOS devices to give photographers and cinematographers a more visual version of PhotoCalc's sunrise tool. It overlays sun tracking info over your camera image to present a clear picture of how you can utilize light now and in the not-too-distant future:

Phase One's Capture Pilot

Part of the appeal of using an iPad or iPhone to deliver content to clients is their relative ubiquity in creative fields like publishing. Capture Pilot was shown to me by a photographer who uses this frequently with clients. It so obviously filled a gap in production that it became the impetus for this article.

The setup is simple: a photographer is tethered to his machine and running Phase One's Capture One media management and RAW converter, which also runs as a server. Clients then log into the session via Capture Pilot on their iOS device and see photos streamed to them as they are shot. Decisions can be made from afar while the shoot is ongoing and images can be tagged and rated from within the app on the client's end. A set of clients could conceivably be sitting in a boardroom with an iPad and not miss a beat during a shoot of their flagship product.

Capture Pilot

Some people might dread having clients that closely involved in the creative process but, for art directors and clients, this is a potentially great cost-saving tool. Not having to fly to shoots and say "get the stylist to fix her pant leg" should appeal to many. Photographers can sell this as a service. Having too many people on set can be stressful, especially if the client is there. This effectively involves them while not having an ornery suit pacing around and bumming everyone out. (Plus, more sushi for me, the art director).

Capture Pilot is now free, which makes sense as Phase One is selling its desktop RAW software and this is the killer app to sell that big-ticket item. There is an optional Camera Control feature, which remotely controls your camera with an add-on available as a $14.99 in-app purchase. This, like onOne's DSLR Camera Remote HD, gives you a nice big iPad interface to your camera's settings. Since tethering requires little in the way of hardware capabilities, it's another smart combination of a tablet with photography. Free up your laptop or desktop to do the real work.

Photosmith

Photosmith was another app that made waves with serious photographers looking to the iPad for more than slideshows. With the Apple iOS camera connection kit, users transfer shots to the iPad and Photosmith takes care of the rest. You can tag metadata and, since it's aimed at professionals, it handles both JPEG and RAW formats. Trying to process a 20-megapixel RAW file on tablet would be a painful venture, so Photosmith's desktop plug-in interfaces with Adobe Lightroom, transferring images with the metadata tags to your computer for processing:

The only current caveat to the Lightroom plug-in: image syncing is a one-way street. Version 2 of the Photosmith plug-in adds two-way syncing so users can keep their iPad's and computer's image libraries synchronized. Stability issues aside—the current version really likes to crash on my first-gen iPad—this is a great app for photographers who don't want to travel with a computer, but want to back up images and do a bit of work at the same time.

I think, despite the "review," you're selling MovieSlate short. Its features are far beyond slating/clapping. It's a shot logger with such detail that you can syncronize it to your camera's filenaming schemes, export FCP XML, PrPro batch lists, take notes, setup multiple projects and more.

I'm not a paid shill, just a happy user. While it's $25 price tag puts it well above most other options, it shockingly full featured and very, very useful when you need something that will allow you to reconcile shot notes with actual files from tapeless media without too much work in an "office" app.

A more obvious hindrance to the hypothetical migration of professional workflows to iOS is the severe constraint imposed by limited local storage.

I found out the hard way recently thinking i could do without my laptop on a 2 day photo shoot. 32GB built in and another 32 in SD cards and another 40+ on my phone and by the start of the second day, I was going back deleting shots and transferring files here and there just to maximise space because I was completely full. And I was doing that for personal use. Coming up against this very basic wall means professionally, it's a no go; as a last resort, yes. As a presentation tool, yes. As a main tool or part time tool, not at all.

For professional use, at the moment, the brick wall is simply too close. It's somewhat doable but it's still very much a novelty for any serious use.

Being an assistant cameraman at one point in my life, I actually used a slate for a couple of years. Trust me -- the last thing I would ever use is an ipad. Not just no - but hell no. First off, on a busy set, stuff can disappear. Add that to the fact that every person on set loved to play with a slate the moment my back was turned and you're pretty pissing 500 bucks down the drain (plus the cost of the app).

But even if I was working on a small set with people whom I trusted, I still wouldn't use it. There's just too much loose heavy equipment in play at any given moment. One stray push, and the ipad is busted. The dept of field charts could be useful on an ipod touch but I'd prefer to just have a written chart as I wouldn't need to worry about power. Granted there's usually plenty of charging outlets, but it's pretty much inviting someone to walk with it.

Just a note that I know there are some great audio apps - I have iElectribe, the minimoog, a 909 and two sequencers but I'm not well enough versed in audio production to separate the tools from the toys.

Just a note that I know there are some great audio apps - I have iElectribe, the minimoog, a 909 and two sequencers but I'm not well enough versed in audio production to separate the tools from the toys.

I'm actually looking for a song writing journal/notepad kind of thing for iOS. To the point where I might write one. I could use a todo or notepad app, but a calendar based music focused app would be sweet. As it stands I'm using paper notepads, which are good, but awkward to keep and store

Just a note that I know there are some great audio apps - I have iElectribe, the minimoog, a 909 and two sequencers but I'm not well enough versed in audio production to separate the tools from the toys.

I'm actually looking for a song writing journal/notepad kind of thing for iOS. To the point where I might write one. I could use a todo or notepad app, but a calendar based music focused app would be sweet. As it stands I'm using paper notepads, which are good, but awkward to keep and store

Nice round-up, there's a lot of interesting tools out there I wasn't aware of.

But the title is misleading, since it's too generic, yet it's all about video and a little bit of photography. If the author is not familiar with music, drawing or any other content creating apps, at least change the title to something relating to video.

A more obvious hindrance to the hypothetical migration of professional workflows to iOS is the severe constraint imposed by limited local storage.

I found out the hard way recently thinking i could do without my laptop on a 2 day photo shoot. 32GB built in and another 32 in SD cards and another 40+ on my phone and by the start of the second day, I was going back deleting shots and transferring files here and there just to maximise space because I was completely full. And I was doing that for personal use. Coming up against this very basic wall means professionally, it's a no go; as a last resort, yes. As a presentation tool, yes. As a main tool or part time tool, not at all.

For professional use, at the moment, the brick wall is simply too close. It's somewhat doable but it's still very much a novelty for any serious use.

When I read the title I thought it was a joke. "Professional content creation" and "iOS" just don't go together yet. To do something professionally you need professional gear. Using something that runs iOS for professional content creation is like participating in a Formula 1 race with a saloon car.

Just a note that I know there are some great audio apps - I have iElectribe, the minimoog, a 909 and two sequencers but I'm not well enough versed in audio production to separate the tools from the toys.

Check out Korg's iMS-20. Sunrizer and Animoog are both great synths as well. Musicradar.com has several good articles talking about great iOS music apps.

Tsa Szymborska wrote:

When I read the title I thought it was a joke. "Professional content creation" and "iOS" just don't go together yet. To do something professionally you need professional gear. Using something that runs iOS for professional content creation is like participating in a Formula 1 race with a saloon car.

As an example, Gorillaz made an entire album using nothing but various iPad apps. Your statement is completely wrong as there are many professionals making use of the iPad for content creation.

I know about the drawing/painting apps for iOS – my BFA degree is in painting and drawing and I oil paint almost daily – but the focus was on truly professional results. Yes, it's possible to get something usable from Layers, Sketchbook Pro (which I own), ArtRage on iPad, etc, they aren't professional-grade since there is no pressure support on the iPad. So you end up trying to use a very limited tool to do what a laptop does, which was the opposite of my focus here.

When I read the title I thought it was a joke. "Professional content creation" and "iOS" just don't go together yet. To do something professionally you need professional gear. Using something that runs iOS for professional content creation is like participating in a Formula 1 race with a saloon car.

Glad you didn't actually read the article. I'm running a 12-core Westmere Xeon for Maya and still would use CameraMan for iOS to quickly record natural motion. Read the piece and tell me you'd rather point your laptop at the sky for an augmented reality photo/videographer app.

Stability issues aside—the current version really likes to crash on my first-gen iPad—this is a great app for photographers who don't want to travel with a computer, but want to back up images and do a bit of work at the same time.

The original iPad is seriously cramped for RAM, which is likely the issue. “Serious” app use generally benefits greatly from moving to an iPad 2, because of this.

I know about the drawing/painting apps for iOS – my BFA degree is in painting and drawing and I oil paint almost daily – but the focus was on truly professional results. Yes, it's possible to get something usable from Layers, Sketchbook Pro (which I own), ArtRage on iPad, etc, they aren't professional-grade since there is no pressure support on the iPad. So you end up trying to use a very limited tool to do what a laptop does, which was the opposite of my focus here.

You should review the Music production apps, there awesome and very usefull apps in that field: Soundprism, morphwiz, lemur, touchable, konkreete performer, touchOSC, Korg iMS-20, Animoog many other soft synth, recording apps, mixing console apps, amplifiers for guitar apps, and many many more, even for learning and reading music sheets.

Some manufacturers like Alesis, Akai and IKmultimedia are even making audio and midi interfaces for providing professional conectivity for the iPad, and also allowing more traditional control (keyboards and pads) for iPad apps.

Yes, it's possible to get something usable from Layers, Sketchbook Pro (which I own), ArtRage on iPad, etc, they aren't professional-grade since there is no pressure support on the iPad.

I wonder why more iOS products don't have some form of pressure support. I recognize that it's limited, due to the lack of actual pressure sensing on the screen, but it is decidedly not "none". For example, see Virtuoso (piano). I suspect it makes use of of contact patch size to determine strike velocity. It's not perfectly consistent, but it does mimic a bit of pressure sensitivity.

Yes, it's possible to get something usable from Layers, Sketchbook Pro (which I own), ArtRage on iPad, etc, they aren't professional-grade since there is no pressure support on the iPad.

I wonder why more iOS products don't have some form of pressure support. I recognize that it's limited, due to the lack of actual pressure sensing on the screen, but it is decidedly not "none". For example, see Virtuoso (piano). I suspect it makes use of of contact patch size to determine strike velocity. It's not perfectly consistent, but it does mimic a bit of pressure sensitivity.

Music apps use the accelerometer to measure strike velocity. Not a viable method for a stylus.

Considering the Jazzmutant Lemur started life as a $2000 hardware touch screen that you could build different controls for different devices and it was used live by groups like Nine Inch Nails and Daft Punk, the Lemur iOS app is kind of the meaning of a professional app on the iPad. They killed the hardware lines b/c they were ridiculously expensive and tech had caught up w/them. Now they can sell their app for $50 and sell a lot more copies. I saw someone recently made a Lemur interface for the Moog Music Voyager Rack Mount Edition. Hook your iPad to your rackmounted oyager and it won't matter if your rack is out of reach, you can tweak away.

rod_zero wrote:

Some manufacturers like Alesis, Akai and IKmultimedia are even making audio and midi interfaces for providing professional conectivity for the iPad, and also allowing more traditional control (keyboards and pads) for iPad apps.

An Alesis I/O Dock (maybe the new Behringer version if it comes out soon) is on my shopping list after I buy an iPad 3. Hook my guitar or bass in, as well as synths or MIDI controllers and I can use the iPad apps for creating sounds and then run the outputs over to Garageband to record if I don't want to record directly on the iPad, which is also an option. The iPad is becoming a major part of many people's workflow and it's for very good reasons.

I love technology And yes I realize you weren't disputing my statements, I just wanted to latch onto a couple of your examples to expound on them some

Cool article! I would like to a see a more IT-y or business-y roundup, too. Thanks to Screens and Prompt, I've started leaving my laptop at home when I go on short trips. Granted, this is more pinch-hitting than primary purpose, but when paired with a BT keyboard, they are pretty effective to the point where the chief advantage of using a laptop is not the SSH or VNC implementation, but the ability to, say, have an IM client running alongside.

I also love GoodReader for PDF work. I'd love to hear about more "real work" related apps like that...even if they are more along the lines of good pinch hitters that won't replace your laptop when you're at the office, but might replace it when you're away.